Bits of Broken Glass
by greengirlblue
Summary: The thing about breaking: there are pieces to pick up and pieces to hold on to.


Bits of Broken Glass  
story by the elusive greengirlblue  
based on Natsuki Takaya's _Fruits Basket_ manga  
and/or the TV series of the same name

When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,  
Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.  
- excerpt from _So Much Happiness; _by Naomi Shihab Nye

--- --- --- --- ---

Hatori remembers red maple leaves as they fell and spun around him, and he remembers the empty space between each leaf, and the soft staccato sound each made when it hit the still damp ground -- it had rained the night before. He remembers standing in the courtyard on a crisp autumn day, listening to the shushing sound of someone's feet against tatami mats, and then the heavy footfalls on a solid wood floor. Here, Hatori remembers he turned partially, his attention divided between the maple leaves and a woman dressed in red standing on the porch next to him.

"Akito-sama…" the woman began, and trailed off, because that's all she really needed to say for Hatori to understand.

"I'm coming," he replied. He meant to reassure the woman, not Akito, but she hurried off in the direction of Akito's room, and Hatori figured it was just as well.

Hatori was still only in high school, still only in the process of sending college applications. Akito wouldn't have called him in for any reason other than to smother someone's memory.

Now, as he remembers, Hatori wonders if he hesitated then on the porch for just a moment. Not to spend a minute longer by himself, but at the idea that maybe, instead of a minute longer, maybe he would never…

No, Hatori answers himself. Not yet. That thought didn't come until later.

When Hatori was finished with Akito's orders, the sun was red and hanging low in the sky, casting long shadows whose lines were visible even in the air as a cool mist rose up from the ground. When Hatori came back outside to the courtyard, Yuki was sitting on the porch with his knees drawn up to his chin. He turned his head to look at Hatori (his footsteps must have given him away) but then just as quickly turned away.

"Akito explained it to me," Yuki said calmly, maybe too calm to be real, but Hatori was glad he didn't have to say anything. Here, Yuki uncurled himself and, with his knees on the floor, turned to face Hatori. Hatori didn't realize he'd been standing so close until Yuki extended his hand and hooked his fingers into the cloth around Hatori's knee.

"Am I really so strange?" Yuki asked, eyes not truly focusing on Hatori, and Hatori had a sense that this was not the first time Yuki had asked that question.

Unsure of what else to do, Hatori knelt down, somewhat awkwardly, and didn't say anything when Yuki rested his head on his knee. He pretended he didn't notice how small Yuki seemed, how Yuki sat there too long and too quietly and too still for someone whose age was still only a single digit, or how, when he finally pushed away from Hatori, Yuki still wouldn't look at anything.

--- --- --- --- ---

A few years later, Hatori was a student in college. He was given an office next to the main house, even though he still wasn't at all prepared to be a doctor yet, and on his desk, books and papers were piled high and spilling onto the floor. In the morning, before his first classes, the sun was at the perfect angle to throw shafts of light through the window and create gold puddles of light on the hardwood floor. Sometimes Hatori would walk with an elliptical curve from his desk to the filing cabinets so his feet would tread across a lighted pathway.

Hatori remembers that Momiji's mother came into his office one morning and sat with crossed legs and hunched shoulders. Her hair was dirty yellow and fell over her face and shoulders and the arms of the chair. Momiji's father hovered uncertainly beside her, and when Hatori said he'd rather speak to his wife alone, the father looked both grateful and hurt, and left without a word. Hatori watched him leave out of the corner of his eye, and he watched as the father didn't notice Momiji hiding behind the doorway. Momiji was all blonde hair and big eyes and gold skin and bright colors, and he looked at Hatori as if he wasn't really sure if this was okay. Hatori didn't waste energy on a reassuring smile that would be false anyway and turned to the mother.

"Are you sure you want this?" Hatori asked. "Are you sure you won't regret it?"

The mother smiled, and it was the same smile Akito used sometimes: angry and desperate and full of an expression Hatori wasn't ever able to name. It was an expression that meant she was thinking that all this was like a joke that had gone terribly, horribly wrong, and it wasn't funny at all.

"The only thing I regret," she said, halting, with a bark of harsh laughter and that smile, "Is when that _thing_ came out of my body."

Hatori didn't look over at the door to where that _thing_ was listening in. He didn't look, but he hesitated, because the thought crossed his mind, and as soon as the thought came by, Hatori wanted to look at Momiji. And he wanted to give Momiji a reassuring smile, empty as it would be.

--- --- --- --- ---

Momiji's parents started smiling again – faintly, hesitatingly, but smiles all the same. Hatori saw them talking outside a restaurant one day, and suddenly Momiji's mother wrapped her arms around her husband. They stood like that for almost a minute, despite a few wide-eyed gawkers who paused a step before hurrying by, and then Hatori saw the father relax into his wife's embrace.

Up until that moment, Hatori had only experienced two responses when a person knew a loved one's memory had been erased: sadness or anger. Before this moment, he had never witnessed a sigh of relief.

This thought did not bring comfort.

--- --- --- --- ---

Kana was the color green.

"When the snow melts, what does it become?"

Hatori felt like he had been made of ice.

"It becomes spring!"

He had been set out in the sun, and he felt himself melt, starting with the tips of his fingers. It _hurt_, this feeling. It ached and overpowered and ate him alive. But it felt right. It felt alive.

Kana was alive. She was vivid and laughing and she had these beautiful bright eyes that just lit up like nothing else and he loved her so much that sometimes it was hard to breathe. He wanted to touch her face and kiss her hands and hold her so close, so close... It was overwhelming, and it hurt.

And it hurt more when he finally touched her face, hurt more when she let him kiss her finger (just one, a quieting fingerprint against his lips; he was shaking), hurt almost to the point of breaking when he finally let himself hold her, just for a second. And she was happy that he did hold her, and she understood why he had been so afraid, and she loved him so much it hurt her, too.

And then Hatori did break. He broke and shattered into pieces when she said, "I'm sorry," and she didn't know who he was anymore.

I am made of ice, Hatori thought. And that is how his heart shattered: like glass, like ice.

The broken pieces were sharp, and they cut so deeply in his newly thawed flesh.

--- --- --- --- ---

The thing about breaking -- there are pieces to pick up and pieces to hold on to. Hatori carries broken memories – he carries them when he visits Yuki, he carries them when Momiji visits him, he carries them when it rains red leaves outside, when puddles of light fall across the floor, when snow tilts towards him in the wind and melts on his face.

--- --- --- --- ---

Just before Tohru Honda visits his office, Hatori rearranges the fragments of his memories while he sits at his office desk: by date, by shadow, by name, by color. He holds them up against the light of the sun that filters in through the shoji screens and notes with surprise that the sharp edges have been dulled by time.

When Tohru shows up at his office with Momiji trailing close behind, she looks overwhelmed and out of breath, and she is polite and jumpy. She is, as Shigure and Momiji have said multiple times, adorable.

It's easy to build his resolve once again to tell her what he needs to:

"Do not involve yourself with the Sohma family anymore," Hatori says to her, "Before you regret getting involved, get out."

He notes her surprise and hurt.

It's better this way, he thinks, before he stands and leaves his office. There is someone else at the door.

--- --- --- --- ---

He thought that would have ended the discussion, but when he gets back to the office, he hears Momiji talking in hushed tones.

"I don't know what Akito is thinking, but I understand a little of how Ha'ri feels. Ha'ri doesn't want to send Tohru away like Kana. He doesn't want you to be hurt like Kana was."

Hatori stands just behind the doorway, unseen, surprised. He hears the sounds of someone crying, someone with a runny nose, and Momiji's quick apologies at making Tohru cry.

"No, no, that's not it, "Tohru says, her voice muffled by the wall. "Hatori-san is too kind a person. I'm glad… I'm just so glad I got to meet everyone. Even if I'm being used for some purpose, giving me the life I have now, I want to say thank you."

Hatori has always wondered why he carries these memories with him. It's the same way a gentle child carries a firefly on the palm of her hand, because the firefly hints at something deeper than the mind can easily grasp with conscious thought. These memories, too, however painful, have some of that firefly's light.

Before he steps back inside the office, he holds the memories in his hands and looks at them once again. Only one belongs to himself only, now, the one with Kana and her bright eyes and silly questions, and it is the one that cuts the deepest. But Hatori realizes, in this instant, that it is the one he keeps in his breast pocket, closest to his heart. And Yuki continues to take steps out in the world, perhaps hesitatingly, despite that it will again end in pain. And Momiji watches his mother and new sister from afar, eyes sad and smile wistful at what could have been, but he still laughs in delight and pulls Hatori's hand when there's the promise of something exciting happening just around the corner.

Perhaps it is wrong to protect against painful memories, Hatori thinks. Perhaps it is better to protect the strength to carry on.

And here, the broken pieces melt like water through his hands and hit the floor, evaporate -- here the pieces transform into sudden resolve.


End file.
